


Endure, my heart

by forsanethaec



Category: Social Network (2010)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Historical, Angst, Greece, M/M, Philosophy, Socrates - Freeform, Teacher-Student Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-09-20
Updated: 2011-09-20
Packaged: 2017-10-23 21:41:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,221
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/255299
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/forsanethaec/pseuds/forsanethaec
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He is the smartest man in Athens, and yet Eduardo is a problem he cannot solve. (Socrates AU)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Endure, my heart

**Author's Note:**

> Ancient Greece AU with Mark in the role of Socrates. Eduardo is not meant to be Plato or anyone specific, for the record. Some liberties taken with Socrates' traditional death scene and also traditional death age...this makes reference to Plato's Phaedo, Meno and Symposium, the Sappho is the Mary Barnard translation and the title is from the Odyssey. In other news, I am pretentious. Apologies for some wonky formatting, intentional and otherwise.

>    
> "A philosopher creates something immortal," Mark is saying, sitting on the ground in the center of the group. "Correct?" he asks when there's silence, and they all murmur their assent.  
>    
> "He loves wisdom most of all," he continues. "And he doesn't need anything else."  
>    
> The words have a satisfying power no matter how many times he says them, and watching the attentive faces of the boys who find their way into his courtyard, today, or the crowd around him in the agora, many other days, makes it even better. He can see it gaining purchase on all of their minds right in front of them. _This_ , he thinks, _is what I mean_.  
>     
> They trickle out not long after that, except for one who lingers, golden and lanky with a mess of dark hair and soft, inquisitive eyes.  
>    
> "Philosophy is one thing for the dead," the boy says. He must be 17 at most. "One thing when you're gone and it's what's left of you, is that right?"  
>    
> Mark nods noncommittally, listening, eyes narrowed slightly with curiosity. He's still sitting on the floor, and he watches the boy shifting on the balls of his feet from the low angle.  
>    
> "But is it enough to sustain you in life?" the boy asks. He's not trying to poke holes, Mark can tell – he genuinely wants to know. "You get by each day on a love of philosophy? No one—" and here he falters, trips out, "nothing else?"  
>    
> Mark smiles slightly. They're best like this, their minds naïve and gentle, able to be sharpened into something that glints like an arrow.  
>    
> "So it would seem," he says graciously. The boy smiles.    
>    
> "I'm Eduardo," he says. "I've heard you in the city before, but it's the first time I've come here." He glances at down at his feet. "My father isn't sure what I can learn from you," he adds grudgingly, blushing lightly, like he feels obligated to admit it.  
>    
> Mark raises an eyebrow. He stands up and takes a step toward Eduardo, watching for a reaction. He doesn't get one, save the slight straightening of Eduardo's posture, the jut of his thin chest. He's taller than Mark, but wispy, fragile. He's lovely.  
>    
> "I'll just have to teach you something worth bringing home, then," he says quietly, and Eduardo's lips fall open and then break into a smile.  
>    
> That's how they meet, just before a wan afternoon sunset in midwinter. Mark has no food in the house, which Eduardo cottons to fretfully before he leaves, and so instead of parting ways they go together to the agora and Mark lets Eduardo buy things for him, because Eduardo is rich and seems to wants to do it and Mark has no money and is too busy studying Eduardo's profile to protest.  
>    
> He stays during supper, and Mark watches him lick honey off his fingers and thinks, intrigued, _he's still here._ He thinks of the father he's already heard so much about, and something sparks suddenly inside him, a feeling he's only ever had for the challenge of an argument. Eduardo is a kind of challenge all on his own.  
>    
> There have been other boys. Eduardo seems like them at first blush, but somehow he's not, Mark can tell already. And that's apparently all it takes.  
>    
> The last hints of sunlight have just faded from the dusk when Mark leans over and kisses Eduardo questioningly on the lips. Eduardo sighs, and Mark can practically feel his body thrumming even though they're not touching anywhere else, can feel the nervous excitement, the desire to please and be wanted. Mark can do that. Mark thinks he'd like to do that. He likes this boy and his questions and his shy, attentive smile.  
>    
> He looks at him questioningly when they break apart. Eduardo's eyes take a moment to flutter open, and Mark glances at the flush high in his cheeks, his red mouth, then back up again, cocking his head slightly. Eduardo gives a quick nod, breathless. Mark smiles approvingly. He leans in again.

  
\--  
   
They're left alone in the courtyard most afternoons, after the rest of the boys have gone. It's not precisely that Eduardo requires more attention than anyone else, just that he never runs out of things he wants to say to Mark, even after months now, and Mark possesses an almost reflexive habit of meeting and systematically overcoming any argument thrown his way. It's a symbiotic relationship, Eduardo always thinks. Mark probably thinks otherwise, but that doesn't mean much.    
   
"I think what makes a belief true is the strength of your conviction," Eduardo offers, perched on the table in the center of the courtyard, worrying his bottom lip between his teeth in the hot half-shade of Hellenic summer. Mark is sitting on the stone floor nearby, staring out at nothing. He looks around after a moment, as though he'd forgotten Eduardo was there.  
   
"And that conviction comes from something deep inside, doesn't it?" he says.  
   
It sounds like a question, but it might as well not be. Eduardo nods. He knows what's coming, but he says, "True," amiably, leaving Mark his open.  
   
"It comes from what you know so purely that you might have known it all your life."  
   
Eduardo smiles slightly, just listening. "It does." He loves to hear Mark's words twine over themselves, weaving something that he doesn't think Mark would call beautiful but that's what it is, to Eduardo at least. It's part of why he sticks around.  
   
"So do you see why you can't simply stop at conviction, Wardo?" Mark says. He stands up. "It comes from the knowledge you were born with."  
   
"Anamnesis," Eduardo murmurs, parroting. "Recollection." They've had this conversation before. He thinks that Mark's only labeling things differently than he is, but he has to admit that it's better, more solid to make true beliefs into something almost innate.  
   
Mark is standing over him when he looks up, that half-smile quirking his mouth. "That's good," he says, and he lifts a hand to Eduardo's face, cups his cheek and drags his thumb over Eduardo's reddened bottom lip. Eduardo closes his eyes, leans into the palm of Mark's hand. He stands up. He's taller than Mark, but he feels somehow more insubstantial, perhaps because he's younger, perhaps for other reasons. He lets Mark curl his hand around the side of his neck, and then he leans down to kiss him, shivering at the feel of Mark's fingers pushing through his hair and scratching lightly at his scalp, at the sudden pressure of Mark's other hand at his hip, pulling them flush together. He loops his arms around Mark's shoulders, flatting his palms against the curve of his spine, and sinks down against the edge of the table, lets Mark step between his legs and push him flat on his back.  
   
He lets his breath out in a huff when his shoulderblades hit the wood, and he props himself up on his elbows. Mark is stroking curiously up the inside of his thighs, spreading his knees. Eduardo's mouth is very dry. Mark pushes up the fabric around Eduardo's legs until it's bunched at his waist. The hot, dry air is a shock on his skin, and Mark smirks, looking down, fingers trailing the other way now.  
   
"Mark," Eduardo breathes out.  
   
"Why are you here?" Mark says. He slides his thumb along the back of Eduardo's knee and Eduardo's hips lift reflexively.  
   
"To learn," Eduardo gasps. They've had this conversation a million times, but Mark never seems to tire of it.  
   
"I thought it might be to make your father angry." Mark purses his lips wickedly. He slides his hands down to palm Eduardo's bony hips, and Eduardo lets his head drop back.  
   
"He likes what he's heard of what you say."  
   
Mark raises an eyebrow. "He does?"  
   
"I think so," Eduardo says. He's panting slightly with need, fully hard now, cock aching in the open air. "I don't know."  
   
Mark leans in, his face split in a shrewd grin. "Better to be a rebel if everyone's too hard to please." The words come out almost a hiss, and Eduardo shivers, hot all over, and then Mark wraps a hand around him and he forgets what they were even talking about.  
   
Mark squeezes, flicking his thumb over the head. Eduardo reaches for his wrist almost unconsciously but Mark avoids him, twisting as he does so and making Eduardo whimper.  
   
"You didn't say you were here because of me," Mark observes casually, flashing a smile, flexing his fingers.  
   
"Figured it was assumed," Eduardo grits out.  
   
Mark raises his eyebrows. "Interesting."  
   
"I'm going to get splinters," Eduardo adds quickly, his voice tight and heady, trying to prevent Mark spiraling off into rhetoric. There's a time and a place.  
   
Mark's lips quirk. The hand not stroking Eduardo's cock with lazy self-assuredness is braced against the back of his thigh, thumb sweeping over the skin and making the muscles tremble. "Would you like to move this to the bed?"  
   
"M-maybe."  
   
"The options are yes or no, Eduardo," Mark says, all low and rough, and Eduardo shivers from head to toe. He stares up at Mark, eyes half-lidded and hazy, mouth hanging open.  
   
"Bed," he says in a shuddery half-whisper, and Mark nods, bemused, and leads the way into the house.  
   
\--  
   
Eduardo sits cross-legged on the floor and scribbles Sappho on a scrap of paper.  
   
 _Although they are_  
   
 _Only breath, words_  
 _which I command_  
 _are immortal_  
   
He remembers others, too, from the little book he keeps by his bed at home – the lilting, round shape of her language, the undertow of sadness that tugs at every unrequited word. The poems crumble under the weight of their own beauty, decaying line by line. Maybe that's why they're only fragments now.   
   
He thinks,  
   
 _It's no use_  
   
 _Mother dear, I_  
 _can't finish my_  
 _weaving_  
 _You may_  
 _blame Aphrodite_  
   
 _soft as she is_  
   
 _she has almost_  
 _killed me with_  
 _love for that boy_  
   
But he doesn't write it down. He knows Mark will like the first one better, and he leaves it lying on the ground when he stands, glancing back at it as he crosses the courtyard to join Mark and the others at the table. He feels a little silly, but it's only poetry. Still, when Mark glances quizzically at him when he sits down, he feels his face go hot. But no one asks him anything, and he tunes into the conversation and lets his brain white out on it, pure discussion, the plucky brashness of Mark's ideas and the sly, prompting cadence of his voice.  
   
\--  
   
"Do you love poetry?" Mark asks him later.  
   
Eduardo looks up and nods, raising an eyebrow.  
   
"I found your Sappho," Mark says, lifting the piece of paper between two fingers. Eduardo smiles, blushing. "Were you trying to hide it?"  
   
Eduardo shrugs. "Do you like that one?"  
   
Mark nods. "She's lovely," he says, with a degree of candor that seems to surprise even him. Eduardo smiles.  
   
"'I was so happy,'" Mark continues thoughtfully, and it takes Eduardo a second to realize he's reciting, "'believe me, I prayed that that night might be doubled for us.'"  
   
They look at each other, and Eduardo's throat tightens. Mark smiles slightly, meeting his eyes for a moment before turning away, and Eduardo thinks it again: _almost killed me with love for that boy._  
   
\--  


>   
> In the agora, Eduardo takes a drink of water from a jug and Mark watches his throat work, long and sweat-gold in the sun. Afterward he pulls him into the hot shade of an alley and presses him up against the wall, the chorus of the city echoing through windows overhead, bouncing off the stone, and Eduardo clutches at his hair and gasps, "Mark, Mark," as Mark bites at his neck, nosing at the column of his windpipe and drawing out the rough, spiced smell of his body. He pulls bruises out of the skin beneath Eduardo's jaw, mouthing there until his lips are too sore to keep going and Eduardo has a leopard's swath of marks for a week.  
>    
> People talk about them, sometimes. People see things, in Athens – it manages to be so small and so massive all at once, and people talk, people whisper, people judge and jump to conclusions. It's not like it's at all out of the ordinary, a boy of 17 and a man of 30, not for Mark or anyone. But there's always talk. Mark's accustomed to it. He's not immune, but he values certain things enough not to relinquish his hold on them, that's all – teaching, or talking, whatever you'd call it, for one thing. And Eduardo. Eduardo, too.  
>    
> He tries his best with this city. There are some, like Eduardo, like the others who come and listen and learn, for whom there's hope. But he can see every day how Athens is a lost cause, wrapped up in belief and misguided principle. It looks on him with narrowed eyes and he can't make it see where it's going wrong.  
>    
> He doesn't have the heart to tell them, any of them, and especially not Eduardo. But it's only a matter of time.

\--  
   
The summons come in the form of a messenger from the courts at dusk, a sandy-haired boy younger than Eduardo who reads the scroll like he doesn't know half the words and still, even so, skitters glances at Mark with a mixture of fear and awe. _Corrupting the youth_ , he says. _To stand trial by a jury of men of Athens_ , he says, and he says _the punishment for heresy is death_ and Eduardo thinks he can see Mark bristle but he might only be imagining it, might be projecting, just a little.  
   
"I haven't been corrupted," says Eduardo loudly when it's finished, only the barest hint of a quaver in his voice, but Mark darts a glare at him that makes him flush.  
   
Eduardo watches his face after the messenger leaves – starts, "Mark," but Mark holds up a hand, head tilted, frowning at the wall. Eventually he seems to snap out of it, and he walks away into the interior of the house, leaving Eduardo standing in the foyer, alone, terrified.  
   
It's dark that night, the air still and dry, and Eduardo rolls over in Mark's bed and asks, very softly, "What are you going to do?"  
   
He thinks at first that Mark is asleep, but then he feels him shift, turn over onto his back. Their shoulders are touching.  
   
"Nothing," he says after a long pause, like a shrug. Eduardo knows he's being honest.  
   
"You tell me, if—" he whispers, but Mark cuts him off.  
   
"It's alright, Wardo," he says.  
   
He doesn't flinch away, though, when Eduardo takes his hand. But it's much later, Eduardo nearly asleep, when Mark murmurs, "Thank you."  
   
"For what?"  
   
"For what you said to that boy earlier."  
   
Eduardo closes his eyes. He turns his face into the crook of Mark's shoulder, lips pressed against cool skin, and Mark noses into his hair and skates his thumb along the line of tension in Eduardo's neck from the dip of his collarbone to the soft pit of his jaw. He breathes out slowly against the crown of Eduardo's skull.  
   
They lie still like that, each place they're touching a point of permanence that Eduardo's holding onto like it's the last solid thing in the world, and he stays awake for a long time afterward, much longer than Mark, staring at the space between them in the dark and wondering why he's the one who seems to need to be comforted here.  
   
 _I prayed that that night might be doubled for us_ , he thinks, throat tight, right before he falls asleep.  
\--  


>   
> Eduardo sleeps so peacefully it hurts to see sometimes, the serenity of his young face, everything he doesn't know. Mark watches him, lying on his side in the middle of the night a week after the summons and two before the trial, and he thinks for a moment that he ought to leave then; it would be so much easier than to wait it out, the countdown to the final minutes, everything a last time. He knows (perhaps not with quite all of himself but he knows nonetheless) that it's what will happen. There's little point in trying to change anyone's mind.  
>    
> Mark looks at his own hands where they're curled in a half-shell between his chest and Eduardo's shoulder. There is, he thinks, such an abominable difference between thinking and doing. He is the smartest man in Athens, in the world – he understands things so much better than anyone else can ever hope to, even as he tries to teach them, to help them see. And yet Eduardo is a problem he cannot solve – a question he cannot break down into pieces and put back together however he wants, the way he is accustomed to doing, the way he is knows how. People don't work the same way as philosophy, Mark thinks. They spend their lives being defiantly whoever they want, feeling how they want, no matter how the world and the facts of love and life and virtue are meant to be.  
>    
> Eduardo sighs in his sleep, turns over and tucks himself against Mark, nosing beneath his chin, and Mark's hand rises automatically to stroke the downy side of Eduardo's neck, lightly so as not to wake him. He watches it all with a kind of perplexed wonder. Sometimes he forgets himself, whether he's still a person like Eduardo who can live his life for its own sake, or even for the sake of others. Mark has always lived his life for the sake of philosophy. Perhaps it's all the same for him. He doesn't suppose Eduardo would agree, but that's why he keeps him around.

\--  
   
The days before the trial are hard. Eduardo wants to talk things through with Mark, to strategize, to do _anything_ , but Mark is apparently determined to proceed like nothing's changed. In fact, he's more provocative in public, more careless in his speech, like every word is a dare. It's hard to get anything done in the courtyard anymore, all the boys distracted, distraught. Mark spends some of his time frustrated with them, some trying to offer comfort that usually ends up proving some sort of rhetorical point, which, Eduardo thinks privately, defeats the purpose a little bit.  
   
The more things change, the more they stay the same, Eduardo thinks. He swallows around the lump in his throat, watching Mark lecture. He'd thought at first that it was denial, what Mark's doing, but now he knows better now. It's acceptance. And so Eduardo hardens his heart and tries to feel that too.    
   
He does alright. He can put up a strong front for Mark on the off-chance that he needs it, can try to focus on other things to make himself feel better. It's the night before the trial when his father says the words over supper, nastily, meeting Eduardo's eyes, _good riddance_ , that Eduardo stands up and runs out.  
   
He wanders for a long time and finally comes to Mark crying, a full moon high overhead and the streets deserted. Mark opens his arms and Eduardo pretends not to feel the way his body shudders, just once, when he pulls Eduardo in. They stand together in the courtyard like that for a long time, and Eduardo thinks how it was the scene of so many conversations that seem so insignificant now. But he has to tell himself that they mean something, because they're all he'll have left once Mark's gone.  
   
\--  
   
Eduardo stands at the door of a theatre lined with unforgiving faces. He watches, cold all over, as Mark says with bland indifference, "As for any charges, I believe I deserve some recognition from this jury."  
   
There is stony silence.  
   
Eduardo turns his face away.  
   
\--  
   
Mark is alone in the narrow room, hunched just outside the pool of light shafting through the window with his fingers curled against his skinny thighs, when Eduardo comes in through the doorway.  
   
"Mark," he says, so quiet it's as though he thinks the air might shatter. He turns the slender brown bottle over in the palm of his hand with numb fingers. Then, louder, voice trembling with the effort of sounding brave: "Mark, it’s nearly time."  
   
Mark looks up, eyebrows raised in surprise. "Eduardo," he said calmly. "Already?"  
   
Eduardo nods. He takes a tentative step forward, and when Mark doesn't move he kneels in front of him, setting the bottle down on the floor and slipping his fingers beneath Mark’s to hold onto them. Mark’s eyes are fixed on the hemlock, though, innocently encased in glass where Eduardo put it a few feet away, and Eduardo can't blame him. He squeezes Mark’s hands, lightly, his chest aching. Mark’s attention slides forward again.  
   
"It's not fair," Eduardo murmurs. His voice shakes.  
   
"Of course it's fair," Mark says, with the brusque lack of bile of one who has spent a long, wearying time making peace with his circumstances. Eduardo hangs his head.  
   
He feels one of Mark’s hands slip out of his, and then the touch of two fingers beneath his chin, lifting gently. Each passing moment breaks his heart more than he’d ever thought it could possibly break. He'd known this was coming for a long enough time now, but somehow it's worse than he'd imagined, this, just this, the ragged end. He looks up into Mark’s eyes.  
   
"They have to make an example out of me," Mark murmurs dryly. Then he leans down and kisses Eduardo, just once, but tenderly, with conviction, and for a long time, curling their hands tight together.  
   
Eduardo’s throat is too tight for speech when Mark’s lips leave his, and when he sees the pinch of Mark’s features and the way he turns away angrily to wipe his face, he has to avert his gaze, feeling, despite how well he knows Mark – better than anyone, better than he sometimes thinks Mark knows himself – as though he's intruding.  
   
There is a man in the doorway. Eduardo knows without turning because he feels the shift in Mark’s carriage, the characteristic stiffening, the pride in the set of his shoulders. He feels panic rise up in his throat and chokes it back down with difficulty, taking hold of Mark's hand again.  
   
"I wish you could stay," Eduardo says. He knows he sounds petulant but he doesn't care.  
   
Mark tuts softly. "I wish you could come with," he counters, and Eduardo sees the slight break in his face as the words leave him, even as he tries to put up his old philosopher's front, until the very end. It's always a teachable moment, Eduardo thinks. Something hitches in his chest, and a singular sob, dry and coughing, claws its way out of his throat.  
   
"Why would you want that?" he asks after a moment, the words breaking in the middle.    
   
Mark’s voice is low in his throat when he speaks. "This is a fine death," he says, still with a ghost of sadness that Eduardo knows he'd never admit to. "It is not the death of anything important."  
   
 _A philosopher’s mind and soul are immortal_ , Eduardo recites in his head. _The body is only a cage._ He admires that conviction despite its frustrations, how Mark knows what he knows about the world and furthermore knows unshakably, even stubbornly that it's right. He's made a thinker out of Eduardo, and perhaps a braver man. It hurts to realize, now of all times.  
   
Aloud, very quietly, Eduardo says, "It's important to me."  
   
Mark smiles, just by half, one corner of his mouth lifting. "I know," he murmurs. He touches Eduardo’s shoulder and looks into his eyes for one long moment, and then he picks up the poison from the floor and stands.  
   
"Let me tell you my favorite poem from Sappho," he says. Eduardo closes his eyes for a moment, feeling his center of gravity sway.  
   
Mark recites, strong and calm,  
   
 _You may forget but_  
   
 _Let me tell you_  
 _this: someone in_  
 _some future time_  
 _will think of us_  
   
He smiles at Eduardo when he's done, and Eduardo stares back for a moment. _Let him see you smile one more time,_ he thinks suddenly, and he lets Mark's words rise up in his mind and he feels his face lift a little, his mouth pulling up with _will think of us_. It's not much, but it's enough.  
   
There's a kind of relief in Mark's face then. He turns away. "Lead on," he says to the executioner, his voice perfectly disparaging, lips still curved. He looks back at Eduardo once from the door, half-obscured by the light in the courtyard, his expression unreadable. Eduardo nods to him, trying to keep something like a smile on his face, his jaw clenched bone-crackingly tight to keep from crying. He watches the doorway until Mark and the afterimage of him are completely out of sight.  
   
And Mark is gone, then, and the room is empty. But for the longest time Eduardo can't bring himself to leave, as though perhaps something lingers there with him. He wipes his eyes and takes a deep breath. It feels like a spark of hope, like something indelible. Something that will stay with him a long time. 


End file.
